


The Softest Pillow, the Biggest Heart

by AlyKat



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Author Projecting onto Aziraphale, Aziraphale gets the happy ending author wishes she could have, Comforting Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Female Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gen, I Guess...?, Male Crowley (Good Omens), Not beta'd we fall like Crowley, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, She tries, She/Her Pronouns for Aziraphale (Good Omens), a character study?, how is that not a tag??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22239568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyKat/pseuds/AlyKat
Summary: Aziria Fell had never much cared about what people had thought about her weight. Yes, she was on the heavier side, but she was healthy (mostly), so what did it matter? Never mind the fact every time she saw herself bare in front of a mirror she heard her brother's cruel teasing voice."You need to lay off the sweets! How do you ever expect to get a boyfriend if you don’t start losing some of that weight?”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 185





	The Softest Pillow, the Biggest Heart

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is kind of a self projection thing on Aziraphale. Yes, the comment made by Gabriel really did happen to me when I was a kid. It stuck in the back of my mind for years and has been rearing its ugly head quite often since I was a junior in high school and I started to believe what my brother had said was true. This fic has significant amounts of self esteem and self confidence issues, emotional abuse, and inner turmoil over appearances. Please tread lightly if this might be an issue for you. It will have a happy ending, though. I figure, my chances at one are rather slim, and since I'm projecting onto Aziraphale, might as well let her have the happy ending instead.

Aziria Fell was not, by any means, what people would call a “catch”. Oh, of course, when she was much younger she had been absolutely adorable. Wide, almond shape blue-grey eyes and long golden ringlets, always just this side of being chubby but nothing like her stout and rotund older cousin Sandy. He was what the family always affectionately called a “big boy”. 

_ “Oh that Sandy,” _ they would say at family gatherings, watching as he’d pile his plate high with double helpings,  _ “he’s a big boy. He’s going to grow to be Paul Bunyon soon enough.” _

No, Aziria spent a good portion of her childhood and pre-teen years believing she just hadn’t shed her baby pudge yet. Some people didn’t, after all, not until well into their teens or even early twenties. There was hope, then, that maybe one day she would be as slim and athletic as her older sister and brother. And it wasn’t that she wasn’t an active child! On the contrary! It was often hard to get her to sit still. She climbed trees, ran races with her friends, biked everywhere she could (within reason, her mother did worry about her). She just...wasn’t quite cut out to be an athlete. Her physical education classes would give her top marks in everything, except running exercises. For all that she ran and biked, running distance was never her forte. 

Some people are never quite sure of what the turning point in their life had been. How they would go from carefree and happy to downtrodden and withdrawn. Aziria knew, though. She could recall the moment clear as day. She was still in primary school when it happened. The brother whom she’d adored had come home for a visit and swept her up into a hug only to grunt and drop her back down to the floor. 

_ “Good grief, Zira! How much do you weigh?” _

_ “Six and a half stone,”  _ she’d answered innocently, seeing nothing wrong with her reply. There were others in her class who certainly weighed more.

_ “Six and a half stone?”  _ her brother had balked, hand on his back as if he’d hurt himself while picking her up. _ “Little girl, you had better lay off the sweets. How do you ever expect to get a boyfriend if you don’t start losing some of that weight?” _

She had been hurt, devastated really, that her brother thought she wouldn’t find anyone to love her or want to be with her simply because of her weight. For years she kept those words buried, forgetting them until her year eleven in school. When she took a good long look at herself in the mirror of the changing room during a lunch break. Even then she truly wasn’t  _ fat _ , just...a bit heavier than the rest of the girls. 

“ _ Curvy, _ ” some would pur. 

“ _ Voluptuous,” _ others would murmur. 

Never to  _ her _ , but to others who seemed to carry their weight better than her. There were those who certainly were heavier than her and yet seemed to have no problems attracting the attentions of the blokes in their school. The beautiful ones with long, shapely legs, a full hour-glass figure, and heart shaped face with dainty chin. The ones seemingly comfortable in their own skins. 

Aziria was not. 

In time she began to withdraw from social gatherings. She’d make herself as invisible as possible, blend in to the background. Soft, warm jumpers that hung shapeless off her body in the hopes that maybe she’d be seen as something adorable, if nothing else. Pleated tartan skirts that were out dated and ridiculous, but she loved just the same. She’d hide herself away in the library more and more, lose herself in stories of adventure and excitement, while giving in to the guilty pleasure of seemingly “trashy” romance novels. The ones with the beautiful women with long, flowing hair and perfectly slim bodies, wooed by the dashing and dangerous leading men. Only once had she found a book with a heavier leading lady, and oh how Aziria treasured that book. Kept it close at hand to read when her spirits were particularly low. 

Only to close the book later, tears stinging the back of her bright eyes, wondering why no one would look at her as something desirable, something worthy of the love and intimacy portrayed within the pages. 

The self-esteem and self-confidence drops happened slowly over time. The more and more as she watched her friends that shared similar weight as her, be swept away by their leading man, off on their happily ever after. Each time she was overlooked for someone prettier, someone slimmer, more petite. The tears would come after that, the tears and the self-loathing, vowing that she would lose the weight to make herself worthy. 

She would give up her favorite drinks, cut sugar almost entirely out of her life, spend hours at the gym three times a week, and force herself to give up the foods she loved in favor of the healthier options. And for a time, it would work. She’d lose stone after stone and start to develop self-confidence again. She’d buy cute outfits and attempt to bring herself out of her shell, only to retreat again when her doubts and dark voices snaked back into her thoughts. The weight would return, her brother’s voice would ring in her ears, and the vicious cycle would repeat itself. Over and over and over and over. 

The day Anthony Crowley came into her life, Aziria swore it was simply a cruel joke. Anthony was tall and slim, gorgeous in a way no one she’d ever seen before had been. He was mysterious and suave, and so very much out of her league. The day he presented her with his phone number, “ _ If you ever wanna give me a call, Angel,” _ Aziria was equal parts soaring with happiness and quietly wondering if it was just another horrible trick. Surely no one as good looking as Anthony Crowley would want anything to do with a lumpy, flumpy, awkward woman like her. 

Their friendship grew naturally, both finding humor in each other and an easy rapport that never happened with anyone else. They’d go to shows together, take walks and often times do nothing but sit around Aziria’s flat, drinking themselves silly and be outrageously flirtatious with each other. More often than not, Anthony would end up using whatever part of her body was most accessible at the time as a pillow, sighing in content while babbling on about dolphins and ducks, and how geese and swans were actually sent straight from the bowels of Hell itself. 

The first few times they had fallen into bed together, drunk as skunks and giggling madly, Aziria had felt desired and confident. Anthony Crowley wanted  _ her _ . Saw her at her most vulnerable and still ravished her like a starving man. Then the morning would come, both of them carrying on as if nothing had happened, until it happened again. 

Of course, as she had learned in her life, nothing good lasts forever, and soon she found her old doubts returning. Anthony had an extremely busy life, she knew that and it had never been a problem, except when she found herself spending more and more time alone. Her attempts to spend time with him sidelined by his job, or family obligations, or simply being worn out and exhausted and “ _ I’m sorry, Zirrie, I really just want to take a shower and go to bed early _ .” 

For over a year this went on. Aziria only seeing Anthony for a scant few minutes a day in passing, the occasional quick talk on the phone, but nothing more. She found herself more and more wondering if perhaps Anthony had finally realized just what she truly looked like underneath her unassuming clothes. If he’d finally become disgusted by her and by what they’d done together. Just the simple thought of him seeing her laying bare before him now brought bile to her throat and tears to her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her flaws. To see the rolls at her back, just under her ribs. The way her body seemed to spill out of the top edges of her bras, the angry red divots left in her shoulders from the straps straining to support her heavy chest. The creases and folds of her stomach, stretch marks that mapped across her pale skin like cracks on a dried up river bed. Her thick thighs that wouldn’t allow even a sliver of light between them and was the destroyer of several pairs of slacks. To see the horrible fold of skin on her lower stomach, a mass of nothing but fat and skin that pouched out and jiggled any time she moved. 

No. No, how could Anthony ever want to see that? How could he ever want to run his hands across her body, worship her like the goddess Aphroditie and sink himself into her warm heat? He couldn’t. Furthermore, she didn’t  _ want _ him to see her naked again. She hated herself, everything about herself. She was ashamed and embarrassed and she didn’t even want to see herself naked.

Aziria cried as she stared herself down in the full length mirror of his bedroom, the first time in over a year she’d spent time with him, though it had ended innocently with them both falling asleep on his bed, the TV still playing a soppy romcom, and him with his head resting on her ample stomach. She cried as she saw the way her arms refused to lie flush against her sides, the square shape of her stout body. She wasn’t desirable. She couldn’t be. Gabriel had been right all those years ago. How could she ever hope to find a boyfriend looking like she did? 

Warm hands on her bare hips startled another sob out of her. She hurried to try and cover herself, only to be stopped by Anthony’s fingers trailing down her arms. 

“ _ Beautiful _ ,” he’d called her. 

“ _ Angelic.” _

_ “Perfection.” _

_ “Goddess.” _

His hands slid across her body, from her rounded shoulders down her back, pausing to stroke and kiss at her love handles. 

_ “Sexy.” _

_ “Gorgeous.” _

Anthony’s head dipped to press searing kisses to her cheeks, her neck, her breasts. 

“ _ Do you know, _ ” he murmured, voice low and thick with desire, “ _ that in Italy a man prided himself on having a heavy wife? It showed status and prestige, proved he was wealthy enough to provide for himself and his family. A full body, fair hair, fair skin...oh, Angel, you’re the picture of Italian Renaissance beauty.” _

A hand worked its way down her sides, pausing to rest low on her stomach, just below her navel and right atop that wretched apron. His thumb stroked gently, suggestively. 

_ “A woman with meat on her bones is desirable.”  _ he purred into her ear, _ “If a woman was too thin, how could she possibly carry a child? There’d be nowhere for it to grow. It was believed a large woman would give her husband enough healthy children to help support the family.” _

Aziria’s breath shuddered at the thought. At the sight of his hand resting so reverently on her belly. The far off, wistful glint to his amber eyes, as if he were lost in thought over what she might look like heavy for a different reason. 

_ “That Victorian time you’re so fond of? They may have caused harm to themselves to achieve the hourglass figure, but oh, oh they were thirsty for a desirably plump woman. Full figured. The height of Victorian beauty.” _

She found herself down on the cool sheets of his bed once more, pinned under the hot and hungry stare while his hands roamed her body and brushed the earent pale curls from her face. Her attempts to look away aborted by his finger gently tilting her face back towards his. 

“ _ Do you want to know why I love you?”  _ Whispered Anthony. “ _ I love you for your sense of humor. For the way you wiggle and shimmy in your seat when something pleases you. I love you for your fussiness, for your quirky fashion sense, and for your bravery. I love the feel of your warmth when we touch. The way your eyes light up whenever you try a new culinary delight. For your book collections and strange habits I’ll probably never understand. The way you get lost for hours at a time in your work. I love you for your heart and all the love you have to offer, and the way you can turn around and be just enough of a snarky wench to keep things interesting. Most of all, I love your softness. Never have I had a softer pillow than when I’m lying in your lap. You were made for cuddling, Angel. Your soft corners cradling my sharp edges. You’re perfect and you’re beautiful, and I wouldn’t change you for the world.”  _

Aziria Fell was not, by any means, what most people would call a “catch”. When she was much younger she had been absolutely adorable with her wide, almond shape blue-grey eyes and long golden ringlets, always just this side of being chubby but nothing like she had grown up to be. Full figured and desirably plump. A woman seen for more than just her appearances and deemed worthy of a love stolen straight from a trashy romance novel. She was beautiful and shapely, and everything she was supposed to be.


End file.
